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Jackass:
The Game

Score:
7.5 / 10

First,
a disclaimer, oft repeated on MTV's Jackass, and even repeated on the box
of Jackass: The Game.The
stunts featured in this game were performed by (motion captured) professionals.Neither you nor your dumb little buddies should ever, under any
circumstances, attempt to perform any of the stunts found in this game.You have been warned.

Apparently,
Johnny Knoxville and the rest of the crew from Jackass just couldn't
quite resist the pull of making a video game.Especially with stunts that I'm reasonably certain could not possibly be
performed in real life without major safety preparations and a
battalion-strength group of medical staff on hand.And that is the charm in Jackass: The Game.You know that no human being could possibly survive stunts like Trashcan
Lid Wakeboarding or diving off a 80-story

building
into a giant mass of elephant dung while mugging for the camera all the way
down.Since you know it's absurd,
even fatally impossible, you find yourself getting into the spirit of abusing
the digital bodies of
Knoxville
, Steve-O, Ryan Dunn, and other members of the Jackass cast, are easily
recognizable even if they're a little blocky.

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The
format of the game revolves around the idea of directing a new season's worth of
Jackass episodes for MTV.Each
episode has a collection of stunts which share a theme of some sort.Succeed in enough goals, you'll make money for the suits at MTV and
you'll unlock all sorts of things like new cast members, new costumes, props,
etc.(Not to mention that you'll be
able to go on to direct the next episode.)

Each
stunt has it's own unique gameplay controls.While it may be a little confusing at first, you'll pick up pretty
quickly.And since there's no limit
to how many times you can try a stunt, perfectionist gamers who just have to
succeed at everything will have plenty of opportunity to complete all the goals
of a stunt and unlock everything.Should
you get bored, you can always play a friend and have twice as much fun racking
up injuries amongst the Jackasses.The
only downside is that it's something that's best taken in short bursts.Playing all the way through might take less than 10 hours, and the game's
Challenge Mode may not be enough of an inducement to repeat the stunts again,
even if the difficulty has been ramped up.

The
soundtrack may be probably the second best reason to buy this game.With a wide selection of punk, metal, and thrash, you can be head-banging
while you're breaking the virtual bones of the Jackasses.The sound effects are very well done, and wince worthy, especially when
you've racked up a truly impressive laundry list of injuries for your current
stuntman.Additional kudos go out to
the whole cast of Jackass who not only stood around in mo-cap undies for
Weta Digital, but who also provided dialog for the game's short cutscenes
introducing a new stunt, as well as the cries of agony for various injuries, and
the encouragements that could make only one's dumb little buddies do even more
mind-blowingly stupid stunts.

Jackass:
The Game is by no means high art.It's
not something that you get into for the deep storylines or intriguing
characters.It panders to the lowest
common denominator who takes an absolutely perverse pleasure in watching other
people not only act like complete morons but suffer horrifically for their
stupidity.It promotes gratuitous
nudity, reckless disregard for life and limb, vulgar language, crass behavior,
and careless attitudes towards the destruction of personal property.And yeah, it's fun.